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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There does not seem to be a broad agreement on whether WP:INDISCRIMINATE applies, nor on any of the other relevant policies mentioned. 28bytes ( talk) 07:52, 13 January 2022 (UTC) reply

List of animals by number of neurons

AfDs for this article:

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List of animals by number of neurons (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)
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Nominating for similar reasons to those raised in the AfD for List of animals by Number of Bones. This page fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE and has no clearly defined scope, along with the fact that there seems to be no idea as to what level of taxa to put here (the animals listed here vary from individual species to entire phyla to individual dog breeds). AryKun ( talk) 16:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC) reply

  • Keep This article was created on December 5th, 2006‎. It list valid encyclopedic content, so meets the requirements for an information list. How many animals have had their neurons counted? Obviously you can't include every animal that exists on a single list. Not likely anyone would take the time to add that many entries anyway. Determining which animals to list should be done on the talk page, through normal editing methods. Dream Focus 17:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I went to this article thoroughly expecting to choose delete, but realised that it's exactly the sort of thing that would have fascinated and educated me as a child browsing the pages of Arthur Mee or similar encyclopaedic works. It will never be a complete list. It doesn't need to be a complete list (in fact it shouldn't try). Its value is that it gives a quick (and visual), informative overview of the typical brain- and nervous-system sizes you need, if you want to be a rotifer, a bee, a lizard, a bird, a human or an elephant. It places us neatly in the perspective of nature, and shows the range of life. Definitely the sort of thing that an encyclopaedia should be. Elemimele ( talk) 22:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Rename as an WP:ATD. Current article topic does not meet WP:NLIST, however merging it to neurons is impractical. I suspect that a similar topic name regarding nervous systems in animals could be found, in order to meet notability requirements.

    This could also tighten the scope of the article, therefore addressing this concern noted in the nomination. MrsSnoozyTurtle 04:23, 30 December 2021 (UTC) reply

This page does not belong as a list, but I do think that an article discussing the significance of the number of neurons or type of nervous system present in an animal would be worthwhile. However, I don't think ATD should be used here, as the article has nearly no information beside the list, and just deleting this and then creating a new page seems like it would be cleaner. AryKun ( talk) 04:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC) reply
Delete since it appears that salvaging the content for another article is not feasible. MrsSnoozyTurtle 05:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC) reply
  • Delete there's absolutely no case for deleting the list by number of bones and keeping this one. PianoDan ( talk) 01:38, 1 January 2022 (UTC) reply
  • Delete for lack of clear scope and for being horribly, excessively WP:INDISCRIMINATE. It serves no useful purpose and has no realistic goal. -- SilverTiger12 ( talk) 19:55, 1 January 2022 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Article in neither WP:INDISCRIMINATE nor does it violate WP:NLIST which has this pertinent attribute ...One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. This simple google search: Comparative brains in animals and google scholar search Comparative brains in animals demonstrates ample sources that the topic of this list has been discussed as a group by WP:RS. Indeed I would hope that this list could be cleaned up from a formatting POV but it is indeed encyclopedic. Mike Cline ( talk) 14:20, 2 January 2022 (UTC) reply
    • That’s a rationale for an article about comparative animal neurology, which is a far more worthy encyclopedic topic than “here’s a list of whatever random critters we can find a neuron count citation for”. Dronebogus ( talk) 14:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC) reply
  • Delete overly broad and devoid of useful context for the significance of this information. These sorts of lists are what people who don’t understand a topic think a topic looks like, but are really just empty trivia that invites all sorts of WP:SYNTH interpretations. (“Oh elephants have more neurons that obviously means they’re the smartest”) Dronebogus ( talk) 14:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC) reply
  • Keep it seems to me that WP:INDISCRIMINATE is being used in an incredibly over-broad sense and most of the other reasons given seem to be nit-picky at best 2601:405:4A80:B950:60BB:D4E8:D7D8:1329 ( talk) 05:06, 3 January 2022 (UTC) — 2601:405:4A80:B950:60BB:D4E8:D7D8:1329 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply
    • WP:NOTSTATS is part of WP:INDISCRIMINATE and states that “Excessive listings of unexplained statistics” are not encyclopedic. This counts as “unexplained statistics” because it’s just random numbers of neurons in a pretty table without an in-depth discussion of why and how these numbers are significant. In fact, some of them are only stats on the brain, while others are the whole body! Dronebogus ( talk) 05:20, 3 January 2022 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – The Grid ( talk) 16:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC) reply

  • Keep because this particular comparison is highly WP:Notable, unlike something random like "comparison of mammals by number of skin cells on their face". (Full disclosure: I would personally keep the referenced "by number of bones" article too, but that one is much more borderline.) Caleb Stanford ( talk) 01:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC) reply
While the article topic itself is actually notable and an article discussing what kind of effect the number of neurons has on an animal, it is highly unsuited to a list article. This list is just a random collection of whatever animals have had their neurons estimated, with no defined scope, zero context or explanation of how the number of neurons affects an animal, and inviting of all kinds of stupid conclusions like lobsters are stupider than ants or Chow Chows are smarter than chihuahuas. With zero content to salvage here, it would be better to delete it as junk. AryKun ( talk) 15:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC) reply
  • Keep for the reasons already given and because I found it useful in my own research. The level-of-taxa objection seems irrelevant: if the available data fit different levels, then that's how it should be reported. Aubrey Bardo ( talk) 16:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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